Wayne Mann
Senior Heliman
Location: United States of America
| Well I guess it's been long enough and my blood has stopped boiling to the point where I can talk about the problems we encountered in Spain.
Yes I think a great many pilots learned a lot of valuable lessons in Spain. The main lesson for me was never take anything for granted at one of these events. Even though it's a World Championship don't assume that the organizers know what they are doing. Also as I would later find out the CIAM basically has no control over how the organizers run the event. I think and would like to assume that after this Worlds the CIAM will be a little more carefull about who they let hold one of these events.
Outside of not knowing how to nail down a piece of carpet their worst offense in my opinion were the guys running the start box. They are suppose to start your ready box time in "A" Schedule during the third from the last aerobatic maneuver, but they would try to put you on the clock as soon as the pilot flying left hovering to go upstairs. It was pretty obvious that they were following someone's orders. They were told by Horace to cut that crap out, but it fell on deaf ears. Everytime you got in the ready box it was a struggle with the starter to do it right.
I would like to know how many engines were toasted at this event. I know of several people that were having engine problems. I lost three rings the first two days we were there before I finally figured out what was going on. This part of Spain was basically a desert. The humidity was very, very low. The altitude at the contest site and at our private practice site at our Villa was a little over 2300 feet. The tempature except for a couple of days was in the mid 90's. Usually mid 90's isn't bad when the humidity is very low, but there was no and I mean no smog or haze to filter the Sun. I have been all over this planet and I have never seen a Sun so bright or hot when it was beeming down on you. The sky was so clear it was a dark blue like color which made the model and it's colors very bright to the point it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. It took me several days to get used to this. Anyway as some of you know these engines are cooled by a mixture of air and water. A good amount of humidity is critical for efficient cooling. When the humidity is normal to high the water in the air does a much better job of pulling the heat out of the engine as the fan is blowing air and water across the cylinder head. When you fly at some altitude like 2300 feet with very low humidity and very hot tempatures the engines get hotter than hell. My hover or main needle and my high speed needle on my YS engines were both backed out over six clicks each. The other problem was that in these conditions needle setting become super critical. One click on my high speed needle either side of just right meant too lean or too rich. The next problem was because of the super clear skies it would get very cool at night and would stay that way until about 10am and because of this the needles worked backwards relative to hot and cold. Usually when it cools down you have to richen the needles due to there being more oxygen in the air. Over there your mixture was relative to the temps meaning the hotter it got the richer you had to run the engines due to the hot air not cooling the engines very well. If you flew early at 8:00 or in the middle of the day it was a guess at best as to how much to twist on the needles. Yes my primary model did have a mixture control servo, but it was tied to the main needle which was not a lot of help over there under those conditions. It needed to be on the high speed needle which is hard to get at with a mixture control. The YS engines don't work nearly as well as OS engines with mixture control. The OS engine has a main needle which controls high speed along with the whole range and they have a hover needle valve for trimming the mixture in a hover. The YS engine has main needle which controls hover and the whold range, but the high speed needle has too much authority from three quarter stick and beyond.
It still makes me sick to think about the problems I had with the carpet in the start box the first round of the finals. The situation was agravated buy a smart ass comment that was made to me just seconds after it happened by a jury member that just happened to be standing there and prior to my caller grabing the back up model. I was obviously in shock at what had just happened and wasn't quite sure what to do. Protesting at that point I felt would have been very risky as the conditions were equal for everyone. I felt that I would probably loose the protest and receive a 0 for the round. The only logical option was to grab the back up, but as Dwight was setting it in the ready box I knew that I was basically screwed. In those conditions needle settings were so critical the model you were planning on flying in the round had better of been run in those conditions recently. That model had not been flown in two days as I had no intention of flying it which was a major mistake on my part. BUT as any of the top pilots will tell you when you get to the finals you have already picked out your best machine for various reasons and having to switch to the back up is usually the kiss of death.
When I left out of the box for the aerobatics and pulled idle up 1 on I remember thinking to myself, boy that spooled up awfully fast and sure enough as I was completing the second of the two horizontal rolls I could tell that the engine was runnig too hard. I turned the model around and started in for the two loops and I could tell that the head was starting to sag, so I took my medicine and brought the thing in and landed it not wanting to fry the engine.
After I landed I was informed that they had nailed down the carpet and that a protest was already being filed. As soon as I left the ready box they fixed the carpet. I wish I had looked back and saw that after I had set the model down on the pad as I would have shut the engine down right then and filed a protest.
Mr. Ito the yound kid from Japan ran away with the contest. He flew very well. His hovering was outstanding. He only had one bad round which was in "A" Schedule. He flew three pilots after me on the same flight line. We were flying in a very severe cross wind in our face. I was lucky that the wind layed down for me in the first two hovering maneuvers. He wound up with roughly a 214 raw score, I had a 230 something and Curtis had a 220 something with a 0 for the nose in and tail in horizontal eight. I should also say that Curtis flew early in the round before the wind got up. My point here is I didn't think Mr. Ito flew very well in the wind. His hovering wasn't nearly as good as what we have seen from the pilots from Japan in the past. If It had been very windy in the finals, one of the other pilots from Japan or Scott would have probably won the contest. Scott flew very well and deserved second place. I just regret having the problems with the start box and not being able to battle it out with Scott for second.
Anyway if they every have this thing in a desert again I will have to think twice about not letting the alternate take my place.
Wayne |
